Bare Bones Pad Thai

Tonight, I stopped to pick up a few of the remaining ingredients I needed for Pad Thai. I just happened to be at Walgreens and couldn't help but wonder why peanuts and cashews are always so cheap there. They are usually 2/$5, plus they offer the lightly salted variety. After that, I stopped by Cub's and picked up some bean sprouts.

I took about 25 minutes to assemble the prep work and wait for the noodles to rehydrate. When I found out the "seedless" tamarind paste I bought at the Asian market actually had seeds, I went ahead and supplemented my sauce with two whole tamarind pods since it was only slightly more work. Unfortunately, I was lacking a few key ingredients: scallions, dried shrimp, cilantro, and salted cabbage, yet it was still delicious. My Pad Thai sauce consisted of tamarind, water, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, palm sugar, and some habanero powder. Even a bare bones Pad Thai has a hell of a lot of ingredients.


The Pad Thai Mise en Place: (Clockwise from the left) Crushed Peanuts, Rice Noodles, Peanuts, Bean Sprouts, Sauce, Noodles in Water, Fish Sauce, Peanut Oil, Eggs. (On the board) Tofu, Limes, Bean Sprouts, Palm Sugar, Chillies, Tamarind.


Notice the sear on the tofu from my new wok!